@ADOBEUK

News, views and musings from the Adobe UK team

Last week, the Adobe education team headed to Glasgow to catch up with some of Scotland’s most influential educators and administrators. We met some wonderful people there and would like to thank all our guests who made the effort to join us and tell us their thoughts on education. This was a great opportunity for us to hear first-hand what educators and administrators think about the evolution of the education system, not only in the UK but also across the globe. The emergence of new technologies, social media and access to internet are creating an exciting environment to educate students and encourage their creativity.

What we heard was that educators – right across the primary, secondary and higher education sectors – all recognise the importance of fostering creative thinking in the classroom, and the findings of our recent State of Creativity report resonated with them a great deal. In particular, educators are in agreement that the way the curriculum is currently set up actually stifles creativity, rather than giving students space to grow and explore possibilities, and that an important step in addressing this challenge is to give educators, and their students, access to new technologies and access to information to facilitate and advance creative thinking.

However, many of the teachers expressed a concern around their own skill levels and ability to use technology to facilitate the teaching or education process. Educators are currently under pressure to acquire new skills themselves in order the facilitate 21st century creative thinking in education and impart knowledge to students. At Adobe we have made it our aim to empower teachers with platforms, resources and tools, to facilitate the transformation taking place in education, such as Adobe Education Exchange.

In facilitating learning, teachers will make it easier for their students to learn how to think critically and understand how the learning process works – which in turn will help to nurture their creativity.